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St. Paul – The Gustavus Adolphus volleyball team suffered a pair of losses to Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) opponents on Saturday afternoon at the University of Northwestern Triangular held at the Ericksen Center. The Gusties fell 3-2 to the University of Minnesota-Morris in their opening match before suffering a 3-0 loss to host Northwestern. Gustavus will enter next week and return to MIAC play at 8-11 overall.

Gustavus vs. UM-Morris Recap

Kelle Nett hit the floor with a season-best 17 kills while making just one attack error in Gustavus’s 3-2 loss to UM-Morris on Saturday.

Against UM-Morris in the opening match of the triangular, Gustavus took a 1-0 lead with a 25-19 win in set one. Trailing 18-17 late in the set, Gustavus scored eight of the next nine points to win the set and take an early advantage in the match.

The Cougars bounced back with a second set win to even the match at 1-1. Much like Gustavus did in the first set, UM-Morris used a late surge in the second. With the Gusties on top 15-14, UM-Morris used a 5-0 scoring run to swing the frame in their favor 19-15. Once Gustavus made up the deficit and tied the score at 22-22, the Cougars scored three straight points to take the set 25-22.

Following a back-and-forth start to the third, Gustavus used a 9-1 point swing to grab a 20-13 advantage. UM-Morris fought back to bring the score within three (20-17), but Gustavus put to rest any comeback hopes by earning five of the next six points to win 25-18.

Despite a 3-0 lead to start the fifth and final set, Gustavus trailed 8-5 after an 8-2 Cougar scoring run. The Gusties could not recover from the deficit from that point on, as UM-Morris scored seven of the last nine points to secure the 3-2 match victory with a 15-9 win in the fifth.

Gustavus posted 61 kills on the afternoon and out-hit UM-Morris .195 to .169.

Kelle Nett (So., Spring Valley, Ill.) led all hitters with a season/match-high 17 kills and a .533 hitting percentage after making just one attack error on 30 attempts. Her single-match kill total ranks second on the team this season, while her hitting percentage ranks third.

Rachel Mazzola stepped into the back row against Northwestern and turned in a season-best 18 digs to lead the team.

In their final match of the triangular, the Gusties suffered a sweep at the hands of Northwestern via set scores of 25-15, 35-33, and 25-21. Northwestern hit the floor with 17 kills in each set (51 total) and hit at a rate of .220 in the match. Gustavus had a team attack percentage of .138 after tallying 42 kills.

It was the second set that turned out to be the story of the match. Trailing 7-1 early in the frame, Gustavus went on an 8-2 run to claw its way back and tie the set at 9-9. From there, Gustavus made its runs and Northwestern responded with runs of its own. The Gusties had a chance to put the match away up 24-22, but the Eagles scored three of the next four points to tie the score at 25-25. Northwestern had five set-point opportunities and Gustavus had three from that point to the end of the match. On their fifth set-point chance, the Eagles won the set 35-33 on a Lizzy Potratz kill.

The Black and Gold could not find a way out of the 2-0 hole, dropping the third set by four points.